Exhibit tells the immigration story of the Irish in Boston

Saturday

Apr 1, 2017 at 7:00 AM

“The Irish Atlantic: A Story of Famine, Migration, & Opportunity” at the Massachusetts Historical Society, co-sponsored by the Forbes House Museum, focuses on a handful of themes: the response to the famine, the rise of the anti-immigrant political party the Know Nothings, the Irish role in the Civil War, the establishment of Irish institutions, and the emergence of the Irish in politics.

By Jody Feinberg/The Patriot Ledger

At a time when Irish immigrants were maligned in Boston, sea captain Robert Bennett Forbes volunteered to convey 800 tons of food to starving victims of the Irish famine in 1847.In the context of the anti-immigrant fervor, it was a rare humanitarian effort, whose story is told in the exhibit “The Irish Atlantic: A Story of Famine, Migration, & Opportunity” at the Massachusetts Historical Society, co-sponsored by the Forbes House Museum through Sept. 22.

“Forbes was one of Boston’s most famous and adventurous citizens,” curator Williams Fowler, Jr. said in one of the exhibit’s touch screen videos. “When Forbes went ashore, he was welcomed as a hero. He was stunned by the poverty, disease and the hunger he saw. Some of his descriptions were truly heartbreaking.”

Rather than cover nearly two centuries of the Irish experience in Boston, the exhibit focuses on a handful of themes: the response to the famine, the rise of the anti-immigrant political party the Know Nothings, the Irish role in the Civil War, the establishment of Irish institutions, and the emergence of the Irish in politics.

Taken together, it’s the story of the journey from “immigrant” to “American,” attractively displayed in the historical society’s 19th century bow-front building with impressive marble columns, tile floors, woodwork and Oriental rugs.

The Forbes House Museum, (originally the Milton mansion Forbes built for his mother), loaned portraits of Forbes and the ship USS Jamestown, as well as the ship’s sextant and massive wood steering wheel. One of the most unusual loaned items is a large gilt Irish harp frame, which holds a formal testament of thanks, given to Forbes by the people of the County and City of Cork. (Forbes, a civilian known for his role in the China Trade, captained the Navy ship after the Navy refused to assign a captain and crew).

In the section on the Know Nothing Party in the 1840s and 50s, it’s noteworthy that the Irish faced religious discrimination in certain ways similar to some Muslims today. It was fueled by the surge in the Irish population as they fled the famine – from 8,000 to 46,237 in just 10 years between 1845-1855. In the exhibit’s graphics, the growth of the Irish community is shown over generations.

“There was a large number of Catholic immigrants and unrest among working people that changes in society were leaving them behind,” said Mass. Historical Society librarian Peter Drummey in a video. “... allied with this was a fear of immigrants they believed were aligned to a religion that would overwhelm the population.”

In the 1854 election, the Know Nothing Party and its allies – united by nativism – won all but four seats in the Massachusetts legislature, a “political revolution,” according to Drummey. As revealed in excerpts from its platform displayed on an exhibit wall, the party aimed to disenfranchise immigrants by requiring 21 years of residence before citizenship and by banning naturalized citizens from elective office. (The exhibit does not mention a widely known form of discrimination – job advertisements that excluded the Irish – possibly because it doesn’t address how the Irish made their living).

Unable to enact their platform, the Know Nothings eventually lost favor, and the Boston Irish started to gain respect after they fought in two Civil War regiments. The display includes a Civil War recruiting poster for the 2nd Irish Regiment and a silk facsimile of an Irish flag carried by the 9th Regiment Massachusetts Infantry and damaged in battle.

In the politics section, there are campaign posters for Hugh O’Brien, who became the first Irish-born Catholic mayor of Boston in 1884, and for John F. “Honey Fitz” Fitzgerald (father of JFK’s mother, Rose) who became the first American-born Irish Catholic mayor.

In a sign of the respect Irish started to receive, photos show President William Howard Taft at a 1912 banquet celebrating the 175th anniversary of the Charitable Irish Society.

More than 100 years later, Mayor Martin Walsh can be heard in a video celebrating that 28 percent of Boston’s residents today are foreign born.

“Boston’s immigrants are very much like immigrants in the past, except they come from different countries,” Walsh said. “Diversity is our strength, today as it was years ago.”